August

Today’s song is ABBA’s Kisses of Fire, the B-Side to the 1979 single Does Your Mother Know. It has one of the best modulations of all ABBA songs in my opinion! When I taught at Mearns Castle we did a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream combined with ABBA songs and this song featured, complete with that all-important modulation!

Today’s song is the 1937 classic Once In A While. First recorded by Tommy Dorsey, it has since been recorded by many artists. Sadly it was the last song Bing Crosby ever recorded, 3 days before his death in 1977.

Today I’m playing Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday for my son who turns 14 today. I had no idea about the origins of this song until I did my usual research before posting the song. Stevie Wonder was one of the main figures to campaign for the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. to become a national holiday in the US and he wrote and released this song in 1981 to help promote the cause. Ronald Reagan approved the national holiday in 1983 and the first Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was held on 20 January 1986. The day was marked with a concert where Stevie Wonder performed the song in celebration. There’s more information in this video and to see the amazing, all-star performance from the concert, watch this video from 5:02.

Today’s song is especially for my Mum who celebrates her birthday today – I hope you like my song choice, Mum!

Begin the Beguine is a fantastic song by Cole Porter, dating from 1935. He wrote the song aboard a Cunard Pacific cruise between Indonesia and Fiji in 1935 and it was introduced in the musical Jubilee which opened on Broadway later that year. One of the things I like most about this song is its irregular structure. Most popular songs of the era would have two or three 8-bar segments arranged in A-A-B-A. However this song is structured as A-A-B-A-C1-C2, with the first five segments having 16 bars, and the last having 28. As a result it’s pretty difficult to remember the structure unless (like I was!) you are following the music. In his book about American Popular Song, musicologist Alec Wilder described it as “a maverick, an unprecedented experiment and one which, to this day, after hearing it hundreds of times, I cannot sing or whistle or play from start to finish without the printed music … about the sixtieth measure I find myself muttering another title, End the Beguine.”

It was probably the version by Julio Iglesias which reached No.1 in the UK in 1981 which first brought this song to my attention, and when researching the song for today I discovered that Japanese author Haruki Murakami wrote a short story entitled Julio Iglesias in which his recording of Begin the Beguine became unbearable to a group of sea turtles! My favourite reference, however, to the song is when Sebastian in the Disney version of The Little Mermaid sings “Under the sea, under the sea, when the sardine begin the beguine it’s music to me”.

Today’s song is Angel of Music, a lovely piece from the musical The Phantom of the Opera and this was a special request from one of our young stars of the forthcoming High Five Spanish series with whom I’m working this week. ¡Espero que te guste, ‘Marina’!

Today’s song is the duet between Julio Iglesias and Stevie Wonder, My Love, dating from 1988. The two sing in harmony on the chorus and there’s something about Stevie Wonder’s voice and Julio Iglesias accent which is quite special. The video features footage of Julio Iglesias in China from 1988 where he became the first international artist to have a live television special with an audience of 400 million viewers.

Today’s song is Alanis Morissette’s Ironic from 1996. There has been much controversy about this song, mostly relating to the definition of the word “ironic”! Indeed, comedian Ed Byrne commented: “the only ironic thing about that song is it’s called ‘Ironic’ and it’s written by a woman who doesn’t know what irony is. That’s quite ironic.” Weird Al Yankovic also made reference to the song claiming that real irony is a fire engine on fire, not “rain on your wedding day”! Regardless, the song was a huge success, topping the charts in the US and Canada, and was awarded the Juno Award for Single of the Year, received two Grammy nominations and six MTV Awards, of which it won three.

The Les Misérables film is being shown on UK TV for the first time tonight so I thought I’d play something from the show. I played a number of songs from Les Mis in 2010, some of which are on my Curtain Up collection, and earlier this year I played the new song from the film, Suddenly.

Red and Black is an interesting song. The student revolutionaries have formed themselves into an organisation called “La Société des Amis de l’ABC” and the café where they meet is referred to as the ABC Café (although in the original book it’s called the Café Musain). When said in French the letters ABC sound something like “ah-bay-say” which is a play on the word abaissé, meaning oppressed, so the students are “the friends of the oppressed”.

The students are meeting to plan the June Rebellion and their meeting is interrupted by the arrival of Marius who ruins the serious atmosphere with his tales of his newfound love, Cosette. For Marius red represents “his soul on fire” and “the colour of desire”, and black is “my world when she’s not there” and “the colour of despair”. For the rest of the students red is “the blood of angry men” and “a world about to dawn”, while black is “the dark of ages past” and “the night that ends at last”.

Today I’m playing the brilliant U2 song All I Want Is You. I’ve always loved this song and think it’s beautiful in its simplicity. The arrangement of the original is of course far from simplistic and it’s stunningly powerful as it continues on for six and half minutes with dissonant chords and the pounding rhythm. With just a piano at my disposal my arrangement is a bit more minimal, but I hope you enjoy this nonetheless. For the original, watch this video of the band performing it live in Milan, or as an alternative enjoy this Bellefire cover.